


Time Goes Quicker (Where the Water Is)

by lonerofthepack



Series: What the Water Gave Me 'verse [7]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Branding, Fire, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Torture, Whumptober 2020, cigarette burns, forced heat exposure, heat exposure, selkie!Graves, tied down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27230557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack
Summary: Written for the 2020 Whumptober prompt: Is Something Burning?: Branding | Heat Exhaustion | FireHe wasn't sick— rarely caught ill, but even when he did, he knew what a fever was to a Selkie; miserable, but not unrelentingly baking hot. He had sweated through his clothes, had sweated enough that he could hardly smell anything but the misery of being too hot and foul with it, unable to drink or wash with no water and cords dug into wrists and ankles. The Finfolk weren’t meant for unrelenting heat, and with his coat stolen away it only made the trembling itch of need for the safety of the water worse.He was dizzy with the heat and the stink of cigar smoke long before Gellert got to the point of it allSet prior to Lay Me Down (Overflow).
Relationships: non-con Original Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald
Series: What the Water Gave Me 'verse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948162
Kudos: 17
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Time Goes Quicker (Where the Water Is)

**Author's Note:**

> Is Something Burning?: Branding | Heat Exhaustion | Fire
> 
> I fudged the branding a bit and it's short.

The room was hot— he didn't quite know how, no fire in the grate or magic that he could feel. It was December; he'd been shivering with chill yesterday and many times happier for it.

He wasn't sick— rarely caught ill, but even when he did, he knew what a fever was to a Selkie; miserable, but not unrelentingly baking hot. He had sweated through his clothes, had sweated enough that he could hardly smell anything but the misery of being too hot and foul with it, unable to drink or wash with no water and cords dug into wrists and ankles. The Finfolk weren’t meant for unrelenting heat, and with his coat stolen away it only made the trembling itch of need for the safety of the water worse.

He heard footsteps, and barely moved, only panted and stared up at the ceiling. Grindelwald had passed him with barely a glance, gone to the fireplace instead. In the syrupy heat, it took him a long moment to understand, and close his eyes against the fury of it.

"Incendio," Grindelwald murmured, and bent to make sure the wood was catching well before he turned back to his captive. "Percy, Percy, Percy. Not so fond of the heat, are you?”

He was dizzy with the heat and the stink of cigar smoke long before Gellert got to the point of it all: a bright sharp sting that quickly went to throbbing, the pain entirely out of proportion with the size of the wound, just below the delicate skin of his elbow.

“Is there a point to this, then?” He made sure his voice was steady since the last little circle of fire, pressed to the tickling spot at his hip, had made him yelp. A concession he hadn’t offered for any of the gnawing nips marching a line down his arm nor for the filthy smear of ash and pain over his heart, and one he didn’t intend to offer again.

“Tell me, Director — do you intentionally train your aurors to be thickheaded, or is it only a happy accident that they can’t think themselves free of a wet paper bag?”

“Stress relief, then,” he observed dryly, and settled back, let his sticky eyelids close as if relaxing into his cot for a chat, instead of hiding the sickly spinning of the ceiling. “I think you’re not cut out for the job, Gellert; you’ve no taste for management-- _ fuck! _ ” The next pain  _ seared _ , twice as bad as the last, enough that he jerked at his bindings instinctively, trying to escape without any thought for the advantage it offered his captor.

“So disrespectful,” Grindelwald tutted, and Percival looked up into that mad, gleeful smile and didn’t bother to bite back his snarl.


End file.
